the value of books

I have loved books for as long as I can remember. I have been told that I loved books even before the time that I can remember. My mama used to tell me the story of the summer when I was three years old and how I participated in the local library’s annual summer reading program. Though I could not yet read the books myself, I supposedly convinced my mother to check out some 500 books that summer and read them to me, thus winning an award for the most read books and having my three-year-old baby face posted in the community newspaper. But it was not the external reward that drove me then. It was the books, the colorful pictures, the sound of the beautiful words strung together as my mother held my miniature body in her lap and the words lovingly flowed from her lips. It was the sense of peace and comfort I must have felt as my mama rocked me in the old rocking chair and I handed her book after book after book. Even before that time, she has told me about my love of books. When I was only a year old, one of my favorite items was supposedly a green cloth baby book, complete with big pictures and one word per page. My mama believes this is how I first learned to speak. As she would point to the picture of a dog and say “dog”, I would bark. And so the birth of my love for books began.

And so it comes as no surprise that I still love books. I love the wrinkled, weathered paperbacks that were once someone else’s treasures and have been revived to life through my purchases from used book stores and estate sales and library sales. I love the yellowed pages of these ancient relics and the permanence of the printed words. I love the loose binding of my favorite novels, read and reread and cherished as if they were rare and precious diamonds. I love the strong solidity of my hardbacks, their covers of emerald green and brilliant blue and crimson red calling to me from their loving homes upon the shelves that line my world. I love the pictures on the covers, the symbolism, the fonts of Old English or Verdana gracing the glossy or faded spines. I love the dedications on the first pages and the author’s biographical information on the last pages. I love the sound of the words now as they roll off my tongue, blanketed in love and beauty and value.

Once I learned to read, I often spent hour after hour in my bedroom reading aloud. I read to the walls and the stuffed animals. And later, as I got older and moved out on my own, I would take a chair into the backyard and read aloud to the flowers and the birds and the insects. And still now, I read aloud. I read aloud to myself. I read aloud to hear the words, to revel in the beauty and the warmth and the comfort, to feel the intensity of the lives inside the pages and to feel the intensity of my own life in this world.

I am surrounded by books and these books are my history, my present, and perhaps a stepping stone to my future. Through these books, I have learned the values of many lives and many loves. Through these books, I have found the courage and the strength to embrace my own life fully and my own loves completely.